Talk:The Great Hereafter/@comment-83.31.177.120-20140121015428
Huh... to anybody who's familiar with the concept of Samsara, this end probably makes a lot more sense compared to those who do not. I don't know whether it's intentional on authors' part - it might be either unconsciously inspired or a very conscious effort to merge western and eastern ways of thinking (generally speaking, of course), but eventually the eastern one took dominance (although seriously, they could have had integrated the story into the game better, especially if the intent was smehow to get Westerners familiar with what a lot of eastern religions and philosophies are about). But I digress... I bet many people from our western cultural cycle knows about the concept of karma, reincarnation or nirvana/moksha, but they are not really familiar how it's all related - and it's all related to the endless cycle (Saṃsāra or Sangsāra), which souls cannot escape, forced to repeat the cycle over and over in various forms. BUT! ...It's not a cycle that cannot be escaped from :) At least not if you follow buddhism or some indian religions. There IS a way to ascend through the cycle - granted, it does not lead through slaying dragons (haha), but apart from the fact that if it wasn't so we wouldn'd have a game, I suppose it could be taken as a metaphor of hardships and things that draw us away from reaching self-realization and enlightement. Anyway - my take on this whole ending is that the Arisen DID in fact did what Buddha's done: reached some sort of "dragondogmaish" state of Nirvana (if it wouldn't, why would the Godsbane "guide the chosen to true freedom"?) and moved further to... oh, I don't know - peek beyond eternity or break the cycle in the different world or whatever. All the past/current (if there are many) Seneschals might as well had not enough willpower to cross the final border, hence they need to be offed by someone stronger than them (at least at that point) - either fear or concern of the life of others or whatever else... Because yup - in many religions that teach how to escape the cycle, moving past means shedding such concerns as well, in order to reach the final stage of eternal peace of mind. Some may bring the argument that the Arisen eventually did exactly that when it mattered the most - fought out of concern of the life of the loved one, but the stake wasn't really the beloved's life, but Arisen's character and resolve. I suppose some might raise an argument that choosing for Dragon to leave everybody in peace for price of one life is a rational decision, but considering that this has only delayed his return for a few decades and the world isn't really better for it, I think that the actual smart decision was try and fight the dragon, despite the risk of failure. It was merely one of the cycles that the Arisen had to break in order to move further, to eventually tackle the biggest one. It's all a speculation though - backed by some story factoids, but speculation nevertheless. The pawn might as well stayed with the Arisen's 'soul' or resolve to keep the cycle to function and guide more people to self-realization... We might as well be talking about playing with the concept of collective consciousness (some things in the game do seem to imply that that's the case) and that people as a whole have to build enough willpower to eventually break the cycle or - through trial and error - create the Arisen that has focused enough collective willpower within him/herself to finally move things past this particular cycle. ...Either way, I think that something in the world has indeed shifted, because otherwise I don't think deveoping Dragon's Dogma 2 be really possible, ne?:) I don't think they'll serve us repeataing of *the same*, if improved (gampley-and-story-wise) experience...